Panasonic High Power MP3 AM/ FM Radio Cassette Recorder with USB and Music Port High Quality Sound with 2-Way 4 - Speaker (Black)

I like the build quality but the sound to me varies with the type of music that is played and what medium that music is played on. For example playing Classical music via CD the clarity is superb in my book. A piano solo sounds fantastic via CD. Turn on the sound virtualizer and the piano jumps out at ya. Playing a quality and well recorded normal bias tape sounds wonderful as well. There will be a slight tape hiss since this unit does not have Dolby A,B,C or HX Pro noise reduction. I believe that is not a failt of Panasonic but rather that Dolby has stopped issueing license rights for Dolby NR on Cassette decks. Playing music via the USB sound OK but not mind blowing as the Quality of MP3's even at 320 are OK but not the same as the way the CD sounds. CD is lossless non-compressed audio compared to Lossy compressoon of MP3, that would be the reason why. Playing device over the (music port) aka (line in) works just fine however! :-) if using the earphone out of a media player such as an iPad, iPod or iPhone care should be taken with the volume of the device. It is easy to cause the input signal to clip and a noticeable 'POP' and 'Crackle' sound will be a result on certain parts of a song with high BASs or high TREBLE. After I found the right sweet spot volume wise with my iPod the sound was actually pretty good. Jimi Hendrix sounded awe-some with the sound virtualation enabled. Can some one say 'Wide-Stereo' mode of the high end boomboxs of the mid to late eighties! Now back to the sound quality, The lows are some what lacking fullness. No matter what eq setting , there are only 5 available settings (Heavy, Clear, Soft , Vocal or EQ OFF) The BASS is somewhat lacking. There is some but not that solid BASS I get from my old school Pasonic from the late 80's now keep in mind that the speakers in this unit according the the owners manual are 8 CM or 3.149 inches. And a 1.5 CM .59 inch ceramic tweeter. Where my 80's box has 12 CM or 5" in drivers. So one can not expect too much after all this is not a Bose system not at this price. As far as clarity CD's, Quality well recorded tapes sound awesome as long as its not a BASS heavy track! Same for devices on the aux in/ music port depending on the quality of the music recording/format/ encoding/ compression etc etc example don't expect too much from a 64kbp mp3. Most of the music from my iTunes collection sounded pretty good. USB playback this all depends on the same factor as far as the compression/sample rate of the MP3. Too bad Panasonic only Made support for MP3 play back and not support for AIFF, WAV and FLAC. That would have allowed for some great sounding tunes via USB at the cost of space of course. . Also recording From the CD to the Cassette on a quality Maxell normal BIAS tape sound great for a normal type 1 casstte. The radio, FM reception is very good and sensative. I was picking up distant stations but with much static as this unit does not seem to have the old school 'Distant/Local' setting that helped pulling in far away stations (distance mode) or attenuating strong local stations (Local mode). Inwas able to use the receiver with out pulling out the antenna. I also happen to be in a good location for reception. There will be an exaggerated static hiss sound when tunned into a weak station or one that is way to strong with the Sound Virtualizer function on. I found it better to turn off the Sound Virtualizer in those situations. I find the Sound Virtualizer works best on CDs, quality recordings on tape as well as quality recordings on a media device. Recording your own voice, well this unit does not include a built microphone like boomboxes of the past. But if you get the right adaptors and a mic preamp along with a microphone you can use the music port and simply adjust the audio out of the mic preamp so there is no clipping and the audio input on the mic preamp properly you can acheive a decent recording. But be warned keep the volume low on the radio as it will squeel since the radio will act as a live monitor to the input signal via the music port. It will squeel! Not a pleasant thing for your ears and could hurt the speakers too if too loud. With that said, Over all I think this is a great value for the price and all that it has to offer. I just hope and oray it lasts me a while. My last system (non Panasonic ) the CD player quit

Review updated December 8, 2022 I now have two of these units, and will comment on both. This is a high-quality compact stereo system. There are 10 watts to each speaker whereas cheaper units come with only 1-3. The manual is detailed. Take care of the remote, you will need it for certain functions. To turn the player on, push the AM/FM button. To turn off, push TAPE/OFF. The sound quality is very good ... however, this player excels in playing music. The vocal audiocassettes and CDs I have require tweaking the equalizer, as the native sound tends to be a bit too muffled. The first one of these I have, via the headphone jack, is connected to older larger Bose powered speakers to excellent effect. There are several presets to tweak for various kinds of sound. The most basic are five equalizer presets: "heavy", "soft", "clear," "vocal," and "off." You can independently tweak the bass and treble. The virtualizer feature projects sound, and there is a "re-master" option, which reproduces the frequencies lost during recording. ... RADIO: You may want to install four fresh AA batteries to back up radio presets in case of power outage. If you do that, diary to check batteries every so often. I found the AA batteries leaking a year before the date they were stamped to expire. I don't use the larger batteries, just the AC cord. There are 16 presets each for AM and FM. Start by tuning to the lowest radio frequency. On the remote, hold the forward arrow button down for a second and it finds the first station. Say you want a preset there; press "program"; then the number buttons to assign a number to it (eg., press #1) and that is your preset. Push the forward button to find the next station you want; press "program" then the number buttons (eg., #2). Alternatively, you can use the "auto preset" button and presets for the strongest stations in your area will automatically be set. To listen to a station, press its number on the remote's keypad. Update on the radio: Now having another of this boombox to use in another room, I've discovered that indeed the radio reception tends toward the weak side. I'd thought it was just the location of the first one (plus that I'm not in the perfect location buildingwise for radio reception), however, trying out the newer Panasonic in another room still fails to achieve strong reception. ... CD PLAYER: This is full-featured. You can start on any track, program the order of tracks, skip tracks, and repeat the CD. Use the remote to program the CD player or the Play button on the unit to just play it. Con: I find it inconvenient that this boombox does not turn itself off after playing a CD. ... USB DRIVE, MAX 8 GB SIZE: The main thing I've used on this unit is the USB port and flash drives to play MP3 music. Back in the day, we could hear about 5 songs on one side of a 33 RPM and then wait for another one to flop down from the spindle. Contrast that with listening to hundreds of songs that play automatically. When you turn off the player, it remembers where it was on the USB drive and takes up in that place, as long as the unit stays connected to power. There are a couple of ways to get music onto the USB flash: 1) Synchronizing with Windows Media Player - In Media Player, you can rip CDs to your computer as MP3s, enhance the quality of the MP3s up to the maximum (320 KBPS) and add to a flash drive. 2) Direct copy and paste of each MP3 - In this method, you insert the flash drive into the computer's USB; open My Computer; open the flash drive; open your Music folder; copy and paste the files - just the music files not the folders and sub-folders - into the flash drive window as you would any other window. Adding Auto Volume Leveling to Music on USB Flash Drive: When listening to music, do you ever find that one song will be too quiet so you turn it up, then the next will be too loud, so you have to turn it down again? Adjusting music volume is called leveling, normalizing, or changing the gain. When it works, the overall volume is similar from song to song without coming in at different volumes. Windows Media Player has Volume Leveling available but these features don't transfer to your flash drive. If you're somewhat "tech savvy," you can use a free program called MP3Gain. Google MP3 Gain for the You Tube demo videos and the website.If you install MP3 Gain, please read the Help file first; I recommend setting it so that your original copy is not overwritten but a new copy is made with the gain adjustment. Or just keep a backup copy of your music library. If you like the program, please make a small contribution to the author. Update on USB Function: After several years, the USB player stopped playing the songs that normally played at the end. Unsure why this happened. To solve this, purchased a San Disk Clip Jam MP3 player and copied my music to it; attached it to the Pana via the 3.5 mm "Music Port", and the result sounds fine, plus, the Clip Jam holds more music and has extra features. ... AUDIOCASSETTE PLAYER/RECORDER: If, like me, you have the older cassette tapes, it is getting hard to find players for them anymore. This unit has that capability. Unlike cheaper players I have, the Panasonic handles even the longer tapes (longest I have is about 50 minutes on each side). ... If you have read this far, thank you for reading, and hope this has been of some help to you. Enjoy the music!

There are almost no products like this that feature both a cassette and CD player. This is the best I've found, and sounds great, but CD performance is like 90% at best: won't get through an entire CD w/o skipping or snagging. My old Sony went 100% for about 20 years w/o a snag before just dying. Since my component system aged out this Panasonic is my main music box and aside from the snags is very satisfying listening, but I'd pay another $100 for reliable performance and bluetooth. Good old-skool Panasonic quality with a couple demerits: you're not likely to find better in 2026

NOTE!!!! Tuner may be factory default to European 9 khz step, rather than the US standard of 10 khz step increments, which will keep the tuner off frequency, unless it's set to US step increments. This can be done by the user: For any purchasers who may have misplaced the manual: Page 6 AM allocation setting: This system can also receive AM broadcasts allocated in 10 kHz steps. To change the step from 9 kHz to 10 kHz 1 Press and hold [FM/AM]. After a few seconds the display changes to a flashing display of the current minimum frequency. 2 Continue to hold down [FM/AM]. * When the minimum frequency changes, release the button. To return to the original step, repeat the above steps. * After the setting is changed, any previously preset frequency will be cleared. Here is a link to the manual: (it is in English , Spanish, Polish and Slovak http://content.mixelectronics.pl/Produkty_Dokumenty/radiomagnetofon-z-cd-panasonic-rx-d50eg-s-2237-100002-11360.pdf Original review as follows: This is an overseas version, quality unit you might find domestically in Japan, etc. Having lived in Japan for 5 years, I can tell you that they have consumer electronics that they do not make for export to the U.S., or at least we'll say you won't find it in a Wal-Mart, or a Best Buy, or any big box joints. In the "old days" you had to go to an import store, or a military exchange to get it. This is one of those items. It comes with the outlet adapter from the round pins to the flat blades and has the overseas voltage choice as well. This is a very nice portable, and I've had more than my share of stereo equipment and portables over the decades. This is a no nonsense portable. I've bought several Sony air boxes in the past for friends and relatives. This is the older school, higher wattage, 2-way vintage. The manual shows 10W x 2 RMS max for this "55" model and the 4W max for a "50" model, a model lower. This is a fine portable for the money. The casette player even has a separate dampened, hideaway door (dust) cover that hides the buttons on the top so that you don't even see them. The plastic is thick and the buttons are larger and of a better grade and tactile feel than typical cheapos straight out of China. The CD drawer is on the bottom. Smooth as it is! The remote is full sized and high quality and includes everything you could ask. Even has an input level control on the remote for the line in jack! It has a variable OFF sleep timer, clock, and alarm. It has different modes of choice in how to display MP3 tags, info, etc. It has a place for four AA cells for memory backup underneath the main power 8xC cells. It will keep your settings, stations, time, etc. unplugged by using its four AAs! It's manufactured in Indonesia and if you know anything about electronics, especially radio equipment, Indonesia was always one of the better places such products were manufactured. It's not cosmetically embarrassing full of chrome, and multi-colored plastic junk, fake allen head screws, and flashing lights - it's all business. It has a clear, quality, FT backlit, orange display with solid segments not dot matrix. It seems to have an auto loudness feature that you can tell fades out as you get the volume up high. It goes from a very rich sound at moderate levels to more midrange as it nears the top which is how outdoor systems sound so loud. A narrower sound, but all the power is concentrated there. No distortion, just gets loud at the top and a little narrower for projection say outdoors, etc. At lower to moderate levels it is a full, but tight, Hi-Fi sound which a single, 1-way speaker, lower powered box just doesn't achieve. It's nothing like a radio sound. Very much the same as a dedicated, small, quality, shelf system with separate bass and treble, which by the way is also on the remote, plus 5 EQ settings. It's a compact, dense, low distortion, low noise, true Hi-Fi system that is not too big and bulky, and can be carried by its fold away handle. Don't let the 3.125" woofers scare you away. There are optimal size cones that can be efficiently driven at given power levels. A higher throw, edge rolled, 3.125" woofer running on a 10W amplifier with a separate ceramic tweeter is much superior compared to a Sony 4" full ranger running on 2-2.3W. Overall frequency response of the cassette player is given in the manual as 50-12KHz. Power consumption is given in the manual as 29 watts. Weight is 4.6 Kg with batteries (10.14 lbs.). This box is built rugged enough. It has the metal screens on both sides covering the speakers which are recessed as well. I was shooting for a quality older school box with MP3 capability. I got everything I was hoping for. Plays MP3s off my thumb drive perfectly. Have yet to try MP3s on CD, but I'm sure it will do great. Quite pleased with it! If you're in the market for something rarer and of better quality than run-of-the-mill, big box junkers, this is one to consider. Take it on your international travels as well, and it will fit in a suitcase with room to spare! May want to invest in 8 hi capacity C-cells, and a charger if planning on using it unplugged often. 29 watts consumption for that fat amplifier, and other requirements will drain the C-cells fairly quickly, especially if you like cranking it up!

This arrived today for my son, who is blind. His 7 year old boombox bass started sounding weird to him, so we found him this after hours of research. There are so few boomboxes being made with 20 total watts or more speakers that have cassette/CD/radio, that this is what we were stuck getting. If you don't require a cassette player, then I think there are a few more options out there. My son has a huge cassette collection, so it was slim pickings on a portable boombox. I always thought a boombox would have boom to it, but with this one the sound is just lacking. The controls allow you to choose a setting appropriate for the music you are listening to, but it is hard to find if you are blind, so I set his to Rock, since that is what he listens to the most. There is a bass and treble setting, where you can fiddle around with the numbers from -4 to +4. That's about it for sound control. The remote control is the worst remote I have ever come across. It is so counterintuitive, that a sighted person has to be careful, let alone a blind person. If you press the wrong button, you could delete the preset FM radio stations, or change the mode you are in. The buttons for each function are all over the place. Whoever designed this remote should be fired. I know I am sounding harsh, but a remote control should be made with ease of use in mind. My Samsung tv remote is so bloody easy I can use it in the dark. Our cable remote is so easy my husband can use it, and that says a lot! My poor son had to listen to me explain the remote to him with me saying, "Only press this, don't press that or you will lose everything we programmed." There are a few "do not touch" buttons on the remote, whether you are sighted or blind. I know, I pressed one and had to redo the presets. What really sucks is my son wants to buy an extra boombox for when this one dies, as he knows any year they will become obsolete. So we may be stuck buying another one of these. If you aren't an audiophile you will probably think this is just fine. Good luck with the remote. Update: We're returning this. He just can't stand the sound and the remote. So we are breaking down and getting him a shelf system that appears to be way better for $80 more, it is the Sharp CD-BH950 240W 5-Disc Mini Shelf Speaker System with Cassette and Bluetooth, available here on Amazon currently $199. Note: It arrived today, was relatively easy to set up, and the sound is amazing. No need for the extra subwoofer, and the remote is a bit better. I ended up taping up the buttons I do not want him to touch. What is cool with this remote is the same buttons control the FF and RW for the CD and tape player. He likes this one so much, we just ordered a spare to have years from now when this one dies.

In a nutshell, excellent sound and it has a decent cassette player! So where I'm coming from: I wanted a boombox / portable stereo that included a cassette deck as well as CD player. This model is now discontinued and finding an alternative is almost impossible. So if you want one, get it now! For a small player, the sound quality is excellent. It gives me really good sound in my extended three car garage while I'm working. I have a bluetooth receiver plugged into the AUX input so I can listen to music from my iPhone. The only caveat is that you cannot select the AUX input from the player itself - for this you will need to use the included remote. The cassette mechanism also works really well in playback mode. There is no dolby (because Dolby no longer grant licenses for their cassette noise reducing systems) but overall the sound quality is surprisingly good. I recommend you record the tapes on another machine (I use a CD player I bought second hand and record with dolby b turned on - this sounds excellent even on the Panasonic without dolby!). I also like the CD player which uses a slide-out disc tray rather than the tacky hinged doors you typically see on portable stereos. Again, CD playback is excellent. It also recognizes MP3 but does not recognize some of the newer, high resolution audio codecs. But seriously, who listens to anything beyond MP3 on CD anyway? Downsides. Other than the lack of built-in bluetooth (I think I spent ten bucks on a bluetooth receiver that plugs directly into the AUX input) the only other grievance would be the display. Doesn't have room for a huge amount of information and viewing angles are great. Yes, it's adequate, but it's certainly not a selling feature of the player. So overall this is one of the best small stereos you can buy. Sure it isn't loud enough for a party, but as an accompaniment to hobbies/chores, for road trips or as a bedside player, it is one of the best of a dying breed of personal stereo. Even if the player did not have a cassette deck, and despite the lack of modern features such as built-in bluetooth or HD radio, I would still recommend the player for the sound it generates. Very pleasing indeed.

This is a great little boombox that you can listen to just about any audio source with. The sound quality is quite astounding for such a small unit (and for such small speakers). I like having the ability to adjust bass and treble separately from the preset EQ settings. This stereo has a great CD player. It plays CDs very well and they sound really nice on this system. Aesthetically, the unit is very handsome looking. It is also quite professional-looking and has that "look" of a strictly-business type of audio system. I wish the LCD display on the stereo was a little bigger, though. Like others have stated in their reviews, the factory pre-sets the voltage selector to the country the unit is shipped to. I didn't have to mess with anything or go out and buy a plug converter. The converter is already on the cord. I have a couple of complaints, though. Even though I do not listen to tapes and don't think I will ever need the tape player, I found that the tape player in the unit was defective. The tape door will not stay closed for some reason. I guess the latch is misaligned or something because the tape door just stays popped up. I had to put a piece of tape on it to keep it closed. It just irritates me that I got a defective unit, even though the "defects" are only confined to the tape player. Oh well... One other complaint I have is with the radio tuner. It's just not very sensitive, especially on the FM band. I was hoping that this stereo would have a pretty good tuner in it since it was apparently manufactured in Indonesia, and Indonesia typically manufactures high-quality electronics, especially radio tuners. I don't know, maybe I'm just being a little too picky. But it just doesn't pick up stations very well. It can't even pick up some of my local stations here that I am only 7-15 miles from! Next time, Panasonic, please include a better tuner in the next boombox you come out with. Other than this, everything works fantastic, and the sound quality is great!

I need not review its functionality, since there are some comprehensive reviews here and I buy it based on sound quality as recommended by many reviewers. The sound quality is excellent, on par or better than Bose Sound Wave portable CD player which I temped to buy many times. This boombox has a pair of 3.1'' speakers and rather small in dimension; the sound is big, and can play loud w/o distortion. If I set to surround sound, it can fill any large room easily with volume set at 27 out of 50 max. The sound is musical and deep, quick staccato of drum are distinct and the vocal is nice if you listen to Evita soundtrack. I find: EQ: OFF Bass: -1 Treble: +1 Surround: ON is suffice to wide range of music. this boombox has plenty of bass, reduce a bit to let the voice/mid-range and treble sings. Many said this boombox's sound are "amazing" or "outstanding" These are loosed terms, I compare it directly to my main stereo, then my computer sound system, both are very good. * My stereos has Oppo 95 CD/DVD/SDAC player, paired with modern Onkyo amp and vintage B&W 602 speakers - This Panasonic D55 hold up well in direct comparison. It doesn't have as deep bass compared to much larger speakers, but is deep and wide enough and its tone - nuance and musicality are as good with its own musical signature. I can use it to substitute my main stereo for casual listening, unless I listen to "8 miles" soundtrack for very deep bass. The Pana's sound is rich, precise and correct. The quality of sound is a surprise. * My computer sound system has good sound chip paired with M-Audio AV-40 speakers. In normal listening decibels level playing CDs, this boombox is as good or better in vocal and general music. I can't imagine it can outplay the AV-40 until I compare the two. The D55 is better than the very good AV40. There are a lot of reasons to like the D55, its response time is fast. Open the tray, put in the CD, close the tray the press CD on remote, in less than 4 sec, you hear the music. Everything happens quickly - scan happens in linear mode, even speed until you release the finger. * Radio: I try a little AM/FM, the sensitivity is mediocre, in San Diego, you will need high quality radio because of surrounding hills and valleys. * USB stick; I haven't tried but sure it will perform well based on CD player. * The manual: very terse, requires study to use all combinations of functions. * Overall build: good for the price. --- I was skeptical when reading growing reviews of a small boombox. Hearing is believing for I can't imagine it compares favorably to much larger system.